View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianBalloons were left near the site off Northeast 82nd Avenue where 34-year-old Leonard James "L.J." Irving was fatally shot and his 21-year-old nephew, Lamar Lovette Hill, was wounded.

Leonard James "L.J." Irving, 34, dressed in a lime-green shirt and dark jeans Saturday night to go out and celebrate his nephew's 21st birthday.

He had gotten off work at 9:30 p.m. from his produce job at WinCo Foods and had to report to his part-time chef's job at the Lloyd Center's Courtyard Marriott by 7 the next morning. But he told his girlfriend he had to join his nephew at Seeznin's Sports Bar & Lounge on Northeast 82nd Avenue because family was important.

Outside the bar after midnight, his nephew Lamar Lovette Hill and another man exchanged angry words and Irving stepped in to calm the situation. Irving then walked across the street with his nephew to his minivan, in the lot of the New Happy Fortune Chinese restaurant.

But before they could get in and leave, someone shot Irving four times in the back, killing him, and shot Hill in the neck, wounding him, family said.

"They didn't see the guy coming. It really hurts that it was cold-blooded, for no reason," said Adrienne Milam, Irving's girlfriend.

Irving's grieving mother Lucy Mashia was awakened by her sister about 2 a.m. Sunday. She went to the crime scene, only to wait hours to learn whether her son was the man killed. On Monday, she couldn't conceal her pain and anger.

"My son was an innocent bystander," she said. "Some coward shot him."

Samuel Thompson, who opened Seeznin's in March, said he didn't hear the gunfire because he was in the rear lounge, where Benson High School alumni were celebrating their 10th reunion. But Thompson knew something was terribly wrong about 12:30 a.m. when people rushed into his business.

Adrienne Milam said Monday she still couldn't accept that her boyfriend of three years, L.J. Irving, who was fatally shot early Sunday, isn't coming home. Thompson ran across the street and found Irving on his back, his right arm on his chest, beside his van, the driver's door open. Thompson checked to see whether he was breathing and dialed 9-1-1 at 12:37 a.m.

"I sat down on the ground next to him. I had my hand on his arm," Thompson said, speaking Monday on the front porch of Irving's mother's house.

Thompson formerly worked at Self Enhancement Inc. – a nonprofit organization that works with at-risk youth. He left SEI to start his own business this spring, but he launched "Reclaim the Village," a personal effort to spur the community to get involved to combat such violence after Andre Payton, a 19-year-old on his SEI caseload, was fatally shot in Old Town, a homicide that remains unsolved.

Earlier that Saturday, he had been at SEI leading one of "Reclaim the Village's" monthly forums. The slaying of a family friend outside his new business left him deflated.

"Portland needs to wake up," Thompson said. "At the end of the day, it has to be a call to action. The community needs to start preaching love once again."

A third man was wounded in connection with the incident. Police say Jeray Lashawn Jessie, 21, entered a local hospital on his own with a wound to the forearm. Police are still trying to determine where he was during the early Sunday shooting.

Rose Mashia-Jones pounded on Lucy Mashia's door to wake her sister at 2 a.m, and they drove to the crime scene together. On the way, Lucy Mashia called her daughter, Shauncey Mashia, who lives in Atlanta.

Shauncey Mashia, 26, said her mother told her that her brother had been shot. "She was telling me, until I see him, I don't know, I don't know," said Shauncey Mashia, who is now in Portland. Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice cracked as she added, "The memory of that call is the absolutely worst moment of my entire life."

The sister stayed on the phone with her mother. "She's telling me, 'I'm on 82nd. They told me LJ got shot. I can't see him. I'm trying to find out.' "

By 4 a.m., an officer told Irving's mom it was definitely her son who was killed. How did they know? The identification in his pocket.

Irving's girlfriend, Adrienne Milam, said she thought it was a bad dream at first. She got word while at home where she was caring for Irving's three young children, ages 5, 6 and 7, and her own 4-year-old daughter.

"I kind of cried to myself in the pillow," Milam said. "Why do people do this? Why is it so easy for people to get guns? It's still surreal. I'm thinking he could still be at work. Maybe he's really not gone. It's crazy, how he can be there one day and not the next."

She said she and Irving had planned to move next month to a larger apartment.

Irving grew up in Portland, but spent time during his high-school years in Seattle with his dad. Family described him as a dedicated father who saw his children on his days off and weekends, and dreamed of working full time as a chef. His specialties: spicy foods, prime rib on Christmas and Jambalaya. The family plans to celebrate his upcoming birthday July 12.

Hill was convicted in 2009 of attempted robbery.In 2005, Irving was sentenced in federal court to 60 months in prison for distributing cocaine and had been on federal supervision since June 2009. "I thought my heart was broken that time," his sister said.

But she was proud that her brother -- her high school prom date -- took responsibility for his actions and served his time without blaming others. His family said he matured, got his GED, and since his release, had worked hard to make ends meet for his children, holding down two jobs.

Now, the family is planning his funeral for Thursday.

"Too many lives have been taken for nonsense," said Thompson, who shut down his bar until Thursday, while the state liquor control commission investigates. "It needs to be understood a good man lost his life."